Ghost is the Machine: The Phantom Lapboard Review

If you don’t know the now legendary story of the mother of all vaporware companies Infinium Labs and their fabled Phantom Gaming Console, I won’t bore you with those details. Suffice to say the company famous for not delivering on a gaming dream has delivered a pretty decent gaming/multimedia keyboard and mouse. The Phantom Lapboard was originally designed to accompany a console gaming system that never arrived. But in the aftermath of that car crash, a shining little hubcap rolled out of the wreckage in the form of a keyboard/ mouse combo that is both ergonomically sound and aesthetically pleasing enough in comparison to all other keyboards outside the latest Apple creations.

As the name implies, this “lapboard” is deigned to sit on your lap. The keyboard/mouse combo has two unique features that set it apart from all the others. It has the ability to rotate 360 degrees in any direction. This is helpful for left handers (Including me) that tend to do our point and clicking on the other side of the playing field. Another key design feature is the keyboards ability to not only rotate a full 360 degrees but also tilt forward to what seems to be a 22 degree angle. This is perfect for sitting on your sofa while surfing the internet. When the lapboard is in its tilted position, a flat surface is revealed underneath giving you a perfect place to place the included wireless mouse. I am typing this review on the Lapboard and am trying to find something of note that I am not pleased with. If i wanted to get picky I might complain that the mouse seems a little cheap with fit and finish and a little flimsy. I may also whine that for a keyboard designed for casual living room use, the inclusion of backlit keys might have been a consideration.

All in all, this lapboard design does provide you with everything promised by the manufacturer. It is the perfect keyboard/mouse combo for gaming casually, not to be confused with “casual gaming”. Gaming casually is being able to play your favorite game while sitting comfortably at your sofa or bed. “Casual gaming” is a whole other post and has nothing to do with this review. The Phantom Lapboard is the first and only product from Infinium Labs to date and a healthy start. It is not the latest in technology (but they never promised that). It is however a clever and useful design for anyone looking to have a solution for computing casually. Both PC and MAC compatible, the Phantom Lapboard comes with a wireless mouse and USB dongle.

25 Comments

Not really. Beats me why anyone would want to buy that for a mac, I mean, did you see those new keyboards? [img]http://images.apple.com/keyboard/images/index_hero_wireless20070807.png[/img] And it’s wireless, too.

Dave, I received mine the other day. They are actually shipping a tangible product you can put your hands on. It works great for gaming and design apps (3d modelling, image editing), where you can have one hand on the keyboard and one on the mouse nearly all the time. It’s not perfect (would be nice to have some sort of tether or magnetic catch for the mouse so it stays in place when you do take your hand off of it), but it’s almost perfectly suited for what they had in mind.

Also, for the people who think it isn’t ergonomic, place your hands at rest in your lap and notice the angles of your elbows and wrists, along with the proximity between your two hands. The lapboard allows you to maintain that comfortable position. The keyboard tilts up, which keeps your hands close together and maintains the angle in your elbows and allows you to keep your right wrist straight while mousing. And the keyboard also rotates, which keeps your left wrist straight while it’s on the keyboard. Every ERGO keyboard I’ve ever used does this same thing of maintaining comfortable angles, and anyone who’s ever used an app that’s optimized to allow you to keep a hand on both keyboard and mouse at the same time (gamers and designers) knows how useful that is.

I finally received my lapboard and it is actually pretty cool. I use it in my Home theater with my PS3 on a 145″ screen. Yes, it is compatible with the PS3. I also switch it to my PC which is also connected to my projector and love how comfortable it is playing Team Fortress 2. I tried with a regular wireless mouse and keyboard but they are clumsy. Specially having the mouse so far to the right and trying to balance them both. This has made gaming in my Theater so much better. Thanks Phantom….Finally

like the idea.. wish it were cheaper.. I float my keyboard in my lap.. mouse on coffee table.. not wireless.. would be great with the recliner with mouse and keyboard right there.. more relaxing.. when playing on steam..